5 ms·

Indeed. I would say that because of various inherent cognitive biases, people are likely to interpret terms such as "overweight" as a comparison to their local

Indeed. I would say that because of various inherent cognitive biases, people are likely to interpret terms such as "overweight" as a comparison to their local average, rather than a medically-established ideal weight range. Such abstract thinking just doesn't come naturally. We are incredibly biased here because our jobs often require little else except abstract thinking. This is massively atypical.

seunosewa 15y ago
I think the parents are right to interpret the terms that way. They are not misinterpreting the weight of their children, they are just answering survey questions based on their own points of view and relative observations.
- paulhauggis 15y ago
  This seems to happen a lot. I've seen many surveys where group x is seen as "uninformed" when in reality, it's because the group has a differing opinion than the person giving the survey.
  - ErrantX 15y ago
    I guess it depends on how the studies were conducted (I haven't looked). They may well take steps to eradicate this problem. However, I suspect you are right and - in actual fact - this may really be what the studies are concluding: that parents of overweight children do not see the problem because the average they see around them is not medically-healthy normal. It would be interesting to see the average weights of children in the study areas to see how much the theory stands. It would also be interesting to see a similar survey that asked whether they thought their child was within the healthy bounds (i.e. no classifications like "overweight" where they could draw comparisons).
ErrantX 15y ago
I think you have hit the nail on the head. This brings to mind one rather long and tedious "discussion" I had on Wikipedia last year that revolved around whether "above average" was an adequate way to summarise "Overweight and Obese". Getting across the concept that the latter terms were - in the context of the source - medical definitions and not going to change with the (ill-defined) average, was difficult at best. There was a lot of "but obviously being overweight means you are above average". I'm not surprised to see others observing the same issue in different contexts.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > There was a lot of "but obviously being overweight means you are above average". Which obviously makes no sense whatsoever: the one person who gets enough food during a famine is not overweight (could be, but that's independent).
- rapala 15y ago
  By my observation, this is pretty common logical fallacy. If from A follows B, many will deduce that from B follows A. This often happens in math, when a lemma says that A => B is true. Many will use the lemma "the wrong way around".
cookiecaper 15y ago
>rather than a medically-established ideal weight range Is it really "abstract thinking" to accept an arbitrary "medically-established ideal weight range"? Shouldn't we evaluate the criterion set by the medical community too before we accept it? I hear constant criticism of the BMI system for determining healthy weights, yet I've never really known another standard system. While I agree that it's bad to compare your chubby kid to the obese kids and write off the weight problem because fatter children exist, I'm not sure how far we should run with the insistence on conformity to numbers like BMIs. If my children are in the "overweight" BMI range (which isn't applicable to them yet as both are under two) but I still feel that they've been exercising, eating well, etc., and are generally healthy, I'm not going to sweat it.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  >Is it really "abstract thinking" to accept an arbitrary "medically-established ideal weight range"? It is abstract thinking as opposed to concrete thinking, because you are imagining a hypothetical child with a certain build, (or is it a set of children with a range of healthy builds?) and comparing your child to that, as opposed to simply comparing your child to the other children you see in front of you every day when collecting your child from school. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_object http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_object
  - cookiecaper 15y ago
    Well, your link lists concepts like "Five" or "Justice" as abstract, so the entire concept of "overweightness" instead of just "overweight child" is "abstract" by that measure. I guess I assumed you meant something more meaningful and less pedantic. And I don't think there's much of a leap in terms of abstraction if you just jump from "compared to the other kids, my kid is ok" to "compared to this number on a chart, my kid is ok". That is just a change in what data point you prefer to reference, not a change in thought patterns.
- king_jester 15y ago
  This is a key point. BMI by itself is not an accurate indication of a person's health. I often see discussions freely interchange being overweight with being unhealthly, even though we only have data for some types of health conditions correlating with higher body weight. To my knowledge, there is no single score or data point that can be used to accurately assess an individual's health.

seunosewa 15y ago

I think the parents are right to interpret the terms that way. They are not misinterpreting the weight of their children, they are just answering survey questions based on their own points of view and relative observations.

paulhauggis 15y ago
This seems to happen a lot. I've seen many surveys where group x is seen as "uninformed" when in reality, it's because the group has a differing opinion than the person giving the survey.
- ErrantX 15y ago
  I guess it depends on how the studies were conducted (I haven't looked). They may well take steps to eradicate this problem. However, I suspect you are right and - in actual fact - this may really be what the studies are concluding: that parents of overweight children do not see the problem because the average they see around them is not medically-healthy normal. It would be interesting to see the average weights of children in the study areas to see how much the theory stands. It would also be interesting to see a similar survey that asked whether they thought their child was within the healthy bounds (i.e. no classifications like "overweight" where they could draw comparisons).

ErrantX 15y ago

I think you have hit the nail on the head. This brings to mind one rather long and tedious "discussion" I had on Wikipedia last year that revolved around whether "above average" was an adequate way to summarise "Overweight and Obese". Getting across the concept that the latter terms were - in the context of the source - medical definitions and not going to change with the (ill-defined) average, was difficult at best. There was a lot of "but obviously being overweight means you are above average". I'm not surprised to see others observing the same issue in different contexts.

masklinn 15y ago
> There was a lot of "but obviously being overweight means you are above average". Which obviously makes no sense whatsoever: the one person who gets enough food during a famine is not overweight (could be, but that's independent).
rapala 15y ago
By my observation, this is pretty common logical fallacy. If from A follows B, many will deduce that from B follows A. This often happens in math, when a lemma says that A => B is true. Many will use the lemma "the wrong way around".

cookiecaper 15y ago

>rather than a medically-established ideal weight range Is it really "abstract thinking" to accept an arbitrary "medically-established ideal weight range"? Shouldn't we evaluate the criterion set by the medical community too before we accept it? I hear constant criticism of the BMI system for determining healthy weights, yet I've never really known another standard system. While I agree that it's bad to compare your chubby kid to the obese kids and write off the weight problem because fatter children exist, I'm not sure how far we should run with the insistence on conformity to numbers like BMIs. If my children are in the "overweight" BMI range (which isn't applicable to them yet as both are under two) but I still feel that they've been exercising, eating well, etc., and are generally healthy, I'm not going to sweat it.

JonnieCache 15y ago
>Is it really "abstract thinking" to accept an arbitrary "medically-established ideal weight range"? It is abstract thinking as opposed to concrete thinking, because you are imagining a hypothetical child with a certain build, (or is it a set of children with a range of healthy builds?) and comparing your child to that, as opposed to simply comparing your child to the other children you see in front of you every day when collecting your child from school. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_object http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_object
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  Well, your link lists concepts like "Five" or "Justice" as abstract, so the entire concept of "overweightness" instead of just "overweight child" is "abstract" by that measure. I guess I assumed you meant something more meaningful and less pedantic. And I don't think there's much of a leap in terms of abstraction if you just jump from "compared to the other kids, my kid is ok" to "compared to this number on a chart, my kid is ok". That is just a change in what data point you prefer to reference, not a change in thought patterns.
king_jester 15y ago
This is a key point. BMI by itself is not an accurate indication of a person's health. I often see discussions freely interchange being overweight with being unhealthly, even though we only have data for some types of health conditions correlating with higher body weight. To my knowledge, there is no single score or data point that can be used to accurately assess an individual's health.